Do not exceed 10-15% of the grist with flaked grains. Believe it or not, there's stuff in there you don't want, like oils and fats, which for this kind of beer are detrimental in too large a quantity. Especially with flaked oats.

Why does everyone start going "Oooo, you need rice hulls!" when the amount of unhusked grist goes about 20%? You don't need rice hulls with 50% unhusked grain! Hell, Weissbier brewers do 40/60% pils/wheat with no rice hulls. You need to grind and dough in properly, plus vorlauf and run off carefully. That's it! You know, like a brewer does.

Don't use ingredients as a crutch to get around poor technique. "I can't actually pedal a bike, so I bolted this motor on." Take your time, run off properly, and you won't stick your mash.

Why does everyone start going "Oooo, you need rice hulls!" when the amount of unhusked grist goes about 20%? You don't need rice hulls with 50% unhusked grain! Hell, Weissbier brewers do 40/60% pils/wheat with no rice hulls. You need to grind and dough in properly, plus vorlauf and run off carefully. That's it! You know, like a brewer does.

Cheers,

Bob

Bob is right. I rarely have stuck mashes, except for a recent heavy rye and a heavy oat beer. In those case, I could have avoided problems by changing my normal procedures a bit.

I like to do an initial drain of my mash followed by two equal sparges. Well the wort from these particular mashes were a bit thick (plus my manifold fell apart on one!). If I had added some extra water before my first draining, I would have had no problems. Once the initial drain was done for these, the next two sparges went very smoothly.